


Candleweight

by orphan_account



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-01
Updated: 2010-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow and Tara ponder witchcraft, knitting, and the fragility of life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candleweight

**Author's Note:**

> For whedonland's Heart of Gold challenge: for desert_sky's giftee.

"You know," Willow said, flipping the pages of her sociology textbook at random, "there was a time when I would have totally been up for a study-date." Words fluttered past; words settled back in their places like small black pebbles. "I used to take my French textbook to the Bronze."

Tara smiled at her. "Did it work?"

"Studying? I guess. I mean, I didn't have much else to do, usually."

"We could study other things," Tara said. "The voices the stars use when they tell us our names. The way the wind grows. The moon's hundred faces. Although I suppose it comes to you very naturally." She was smiling.

"I wasn't supposed to be a witch at all," Willow said. She shut the book, opened it. Saw the photo of a skeleton in black and white, thought of Ms. Calendar. Of a single long-stemmed rose. _Upstairs._ Giles had never shown it to her, but she had known. She had known.

"Oh, I doubt that," Tara said softly. "It would have been a matter of time."

Willow wanted to ask, sometimes, how Tara had come to her own paths of power. But it was something that had to be given, not demanded. Impatient as she was, she didn't want to risk what she had with Tara by pushing.

Instead, she asked, "What do you do in your free time? That's not witchy?"

Tara laughed. "Everything a witch does is 'witchy.' It's just a matter of finding the connection."

"So all the plants in your dorm room are--?"

"I don't use them for spells," Tara said mildly. "But plants know the earth more closely than we do. It's good to be reminded of that."

"Knitting?" Willow remembered the basket of yarns in greens and russets, tucked away in a corner.

"Knitting is all about connections," Tara said. "Have you done much of it?"

"Not really," Willow said.

"It's kind of magical in itself. You take this long strand and loop it through itself and if you do it long enough, it becomes something new. I suppose you can also net the wind and summon waves, but honestly it's a rather inefficient way of doing it." She peeked sideways at Willow and added, "And sometimes I just want a new pair of socks. I'll knit you a pair if you like."

Willow was surprised to find herself blushing. "Y-yes. I'd like that."

Cautiously, Tara said, "You lost your teacher, didn't you? I know you don't like to talk about her--"

"It's not that," Willow said. "A-a vampire got her. It's not my story to tell, you'd have to ask Buffy about that part of it. But she was a techno-pagan and she was one of my favorite teachers, and it happened very suddenly."

"I'm sorry," Tara said.

"I suppose witches have to find each other where we can," she said. And suddenly: "I don't want to mess this up, Tara. Sometimes it feels like everything's full of possibilities--and then I remember how fast everything can fall apart. I want to keep everything safe forever. In one of those little snow domes."

Tara's eyes crinkled. "You can't even keep Time safe forever, Willow. You just have to take what you can when you have it."

Willow bit her lip. "It's so hard sometimes."

"We'll do it together," Tara said. "Balance ourselves on the wheel of the world one moment at a time."

Tara held her hands out, and Willow rested her fingertips on them, grateful for the moment's candleweight of warmth.


End file.
